The party left the wood fiends clearing and after getting their stuff from the campsite, they started the trek back to Jylen. Matt kept his senses peeled for any more tree stalkers that might decide to attack them, but the few that he did feel in his perception immediately ran away from the group after noticing them.
Matt asked the party why the stalkers didn’t attack like they used to and was given an interesting answer. Apparently, tree stalkers usually only attack either weak or singular targets. It is normally unheard of for tree stalkers to attack groups larger than two, but the wood fiend was making the stalkers act in ways they wouldn’t and making them more aggressive. This was important for the wood fiend since the stalkers were the things bringing it food and traveling the territory. Now that the wood fiend was dead, they were free from its control and returning to their normal behavior.
They also didn’t normally live this far on the outskirts of the forest, so they were moving deeper. While they were weak and would fit in the outer rings, they were able to kill things slightly stronger than them so they were closer to the border of the outermost ring and the next ring in. That also explained why Matt was attacked by them on his first day here; the stalkers were in the new territory and trying to find things to bring back to the wood fiend. The thought of ending up like the deer creature made Matt's skin crawl and he was once more grateful for Bishop's help.
Focusing on his senses, Matt once again felt Janica twirl her wand in the air. Since he didn’t need to focus very much on the environment, Matt let his attention focus on the magical tool. He didn’t know how the wand was made, but thanks to his senses he could tell a few facts about it.
The wood was similar to the fiend wood he had just acquired in how it was stronger than non magical wood, and it felt the same in a way that Matt hadn’t noticed before. Both the fiend wood and the wand had this strange feeling to it that Matt couldn’t describe other than noticing there was something there. It was interesting to watch the quality interact with the wood, feeling not what it is but just how it interacts with the material. This quality is noticeably absent from regular wood, so it must be something unique to special types of wood.
The strange quality seemed to have been enhanced through shaping, but the durability wasn’t made much stronger. It looks like there is a limit on how much shaping could be done to the wand without interfering with the strange quality, and something about it was more important than how durable the wand was.
The wand was some kind of dark wood and while he could not feel the crystal, he could feel the way the wood was wrapped around it and holding it in place. Matt could feel the strange property move through the wand and disappear from his senses into the crystal, but that gave Matt the hint it was probably something for spell casting.
Florvans staff was also much the same. The wood wasn’t ivor, but it was white and had a slight silvery shine to the material and was obviously shaped to get the perfectly circular top and even rod. The wood also had the strange quality that traveled through the staff and disappeared into the wires, which presumably kept going into the crystals. But the quality was there and looked to be favored over other enhancements, although the staff had a bit more durability strengthening. Probably because it was bigger.
“Hey Janica, Florvan, how do your wand and staff work? I haven’t gotten to see magic much before, and I can’t tell much about how they are made from the wood I can feel. There is something weird in the wood but I don’t know what it is.” The two mages seemed interested in the question, but Janica looked to Florvan so he took the initiative to respond.
“Well, I am of course not a shaper so my knowledge is limited but any good scholar should know how their equipment works. Certain types of wood can hold energy, such as that from certain magical trees and monster material like the wood on your pack there. Shapers can then enhance a material's ability to transfer energy, and by doing something I will never be able to understand, they align the energy to specifically mana and by attaching certain mana crystals to the whole tool, it allows a mage to capture their spell glyph into the casting focus and project it outwards without taking up part of the spells intent.”
“Yeah. I don’t know how your connection works but mana is pretty easy to explain. When we cast spells, we imbue our mana into our understanding of words of power, and form the intent of how we want it to manifest. So for example, if I were to cast a fire arrow spell without a wand, I would need to dedicate part of my intent in causing it to fly forward, and focus on aiming. However, with a wand I can focus all of my intent on power and use the wand to throw the spell, which is much easier to aim.”
“Okay, that makes sense. I noticed that the staff looked to have more range, is that actually the case?” Matt asked while digesting the information. Florven nodded while lifting his staff and presenting it to Matt.
“It is. While a wand is much faster for spell slinging, it has a bit less range. This is of course better for mages such as Janica who is focusing on sending as many spells at foes as possible and doesn’t mind getting a little closer. For strategist support healers such as me, a staff is better since I am more conservative with when I cast spells. However it is all down to preference. Some healers use wands, such as war healers who move throughout the battlefield and heal many people in rapid succession. A ballistae mage would favor staves so they can stand further back and deliver high power spells. And some don’t even use focuses at all, every mage is different. And it is thanks to shapers that we can even have the option.”
That was all very interesting. Matt wondered for a moment which he would prefer if he were a mage before he remembered something that Florvan had said about the strange quality.
“You said that shapers could align the material to mana specifically, can they do the same for connection or aura?” Surprisingly, it was Karrn that answered the question.
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“Oh yeah, they can align it to anything. Mages usually use wood staves and wands because it’s cheaper and magical wood is easier to come by than magic metal, but a mage will usually splurge on the cost eventually for a mythril focus or something. But knights get magic weapons all the time. I tell you, I once held a mythril sword covering it with aura was almost effortless. Can’t wait till I get one for myself. And for connection, well that's basically what cores do on their own, but shapers can align stuff for connection even further. They can align non magical stuff too, but it’s apparently incredibly inefficient and not worth it most of the time.” Matt wanted to learn how to do that. He really wanted to do that.
“Do you know what the property they are enhancing is called? I want to look into it when we get back.” Matt asked, earning a shake of the head from Karrn but Janica spoke up.
“It’s something like countenance, I heard the shaper who made my wand say it.” Janica offered with a smile.
“Resonance. It is called resonance Matt, and while most shapers wouldn’t be able to learn it, the fact you can already feel its effects without knowing what it is makes me feel you will succeed.”
“Yeah wonder child, keep us in mind when you make it big and are shaping for the king will ya?” Janica said while bumping into Matt's shoulder with a laugh. That followed into Janica and Karrn loudly joking and announcing what their dream gear would be and how Matt would be the best shaper to go to.
Matt smiled at the confidence and energy the party had in him, but he tuned out the conversation as it drifted away from him and he looked at his status screen.
Matthias Harding
Level 4
1st Bond Shaper
Purchase Points: 2
MATERIALS:
Wood
Fabric
PROPERTIES:
Durability
Weight
Hardness
Flammability
Scale Level 2
Blueprint Level 0
Intent Level 0
QUESTS:
Scale Threshold
He had the two points he needed to level his scale again and finish his quest. And while he really wanted to advance in his tier, he would need to wait until he got back to the inn. While that wasn’t an issue, he really wanted to mess with resonance and points weren’t that impossible to come by. After thinking over it for a few moments, his will lost the battle and he focused on one of the points and after finding ‘Resonance’ as a property he could unlock he went ahead and purchased the property. As soon as he did, a new window popped up.
New Achievement!
You have awakened your understanding of five different properties! This is a milestone for any respectable shaper that sets them apart from their peers, and you did it all at first bond!
Reward: 1 point, Large Level Progress
Oh, that was incredibly helpful for Matt! He not only got to unlock this new aspect of shaping with resonance, he also still has the points to level his scale and advance his tier! Matt grinned as he celebrated his luck before remembering why he did this, so turning his attention back to his material perceptions he focused back on Janica and Florvens focuses and was shocked slightly.
He could now actually feel what the weird property was instead of just how it interacted with the rest of the wood, and it was interesting. The property he now knew as resonance felt like a faint beating pulse as the different types of energy flowed through it. He couldn’t feel mana entirely, but he could feel the faint edges of an energy that was similar to what connection felt like but was entirely its own thing.
He could also now tell why it had to be prioritized over other enhancement, it took up a lot of space. Normal enhancements didn’t really overlap, but focusing the resonance did take a lot of connection and force the material to have a certain amount of space for things to use his connection with.
Looking back at his fiend wood and equipment, he could also feel the resonance in his armor and weapon. It was interesting because unlike the resonance of the wand and staff, it didn't have that slight flavoring of mana and was unguided and just pulsed with everything. That is except for his bat, which had two different resonances in the same object. He could feel the unguided resonance of the fiend wood, and he could feel the resonance of all the core wood he was infused into the bat, resolutely aligned with connection and pulsing in the same way his own energy did.
Feeling his heart quicken slightly, Matt shaped the resonance alignment so that it fit his connection, and was amazed with the outcomes. Unlike the core that not only accepted his connection easier and made shaping easier, the resonance just made it way easier for his connection to move through the material. In fact, it made it so easy he could almost leave his bond connected and not need to focus on keeping it steady, just leaving it. He wasn’t able to enhance his armor that much since he needed to focus on his other properties, he used what little space he had left to focus the resonance.
His weapon on the other hand, had way more room since he had to leave the hardness low and he could focus less on durability since he could fix it easily whenever he needed to, so he used almost half of the metaphorical space to increase its resonance. That and the numerous cores he has fused to the weapon made it incredibly responsive to his shaping. He could leave his bond passively connected to the bat and not worry about keeping it up, and the efficiency of shaping the wood was increased even further.
Focusing back on his surroundings, Matt noticed that the sun was beginning to set as the sky darkened, and that they were very close to the edge of the forest. Walking a few minutes longer, the group exited the treeline and Matt looked over at the town lit in the twilight sun. The party stopped next to him and all took a deep breath as they felt their adventure come to an end, and they all returned home.